A Comparative Study of Working-Class Disorganization: Union Decline in Eighteen Advanced Capitalist Countries

In contrast to the diverse trends that prevailed for most of the postwar period, unionization rates in the advanced capitalist countries generally declined in the 1980s. I propose a discrete-time hazard-rate model to explain this novel pattern of labor disorganization. Model estimates indicate that union decline is related to growing economic openness, unemployment, pre-existing levels of unionization, the decentralization of collective bargaining institutions, and the electoral failure of social democratic parties through the 1980s.